Game Dev Tycoon

Game Dev Tycoon is a management simulation that puts the player in charge of a video game development company, threading a simple story from the humble beginnings of garage based developers releasing text adventures to the modern day game studio with multiple employees crafting the most complex digital entertainment titles we’re most familiar with today. Created by Greenheart Games, an independent developer started by a twosome of brothers, Game Dev Tycoon is a cute and witty take on the video game development process. There is a certain level of addiction the game instills in the player, pushing them to continue to develop new titles or create new businesses to try and squeeze out the best review scores ensuring a steady stream of sales which equates to more cash for your little simulated development company. The graphics are simple, looking something like a Flash game you would see on ArmorGames.com or Facebook but they’re bright and colorful if commonly static. Sound effects are minimal but the jaunty background music screams “budget title” and fades away into obscurity after a few hours of playing. Every so often you’ll notice it’s there but for the most part it’s nothing more than white background noise. Gameplay is, much to this reviewer’s chagrin, shallow and the story you follow is more of a loose set of historical narrative that drives the simulated timeline forward and serves no grand purpose other than to unlock new researchable concepts and technologies. For the multitude of flaws, the game is rock steady and never crashed once as I played through about 10 new games; I pushed far too many of my development companies too hard and found myself unable to pay my bills, effectively shuttering my once thriving company. The current asking price from the developer’s website is $10 which is a bit steep for what you actually get. If you can find Game Dev Tycoon on sale on Steam it’s certainly worth picking up. With the game basically handed over to the currently highly active fan base for modding, who knows what additional features can crop up free of charge. As it is the vanilla version is sure to please and a title that’s a great addition to a game library if more for a fun diversion to sink your time into, not as a AAA title to sink months of play into.

score: 7/10

Very entertaining video series of a playthrough of Game Dev Tycoon. A quick overview of the core gameplay for new players. Be sure to head over to YouTube to watch the full series at Jesse Cox's channel!

graphics

Gave Dev Tycoon looks like the free-to-play slag you find littered all around the Internet these days. It’s nothing more than what appears to be spread sheets and random number generators cloaked in some jazzy Java script. The animations are simple but endearing; your simulated staff scratches their heads and sip from little cups of coffee though that’s the extent of the animation you’ll find but it’s enough to at least break the monotony. Your starting office is your home garage complete with a tiny work bench and an old 1980’s car covered by a blue tarp, what I assume is your project to work on should this whole newfangled video game thing doesn't work out. The colors are bright and snappy and edges are soft and soothing but there’s not much here to look at. As you progress in the game you gain access to bigger offices which provide a little more eye candy but the game after a while becomes rote, anticipated, and bland. Bright colors and well-drawn graphics can only take this game so far. As your team works on a video game little colored bubbles pop up from their heads and float to the top where an animated meter keeps track of how many technology and design points you’re funneling into your current project. It’s a clever way of pushing the development process forward but it smacks of free-to-play cheapness at every turn. Considering two people are responsible for putting this entire game together, the simple graphics are actually done nicely but that doesn't take away from the sheer simplicity of it all. And sometimes simple is nice; as gamers we’re spoiled by cutting edge animations and graphics and the break from the glitz and glamour reminds us that the most beautiful graphics can cover up some really ugly gameplay and shoddy design choices. Game Dev Tycoon distills everything down to its simplest form and even though it can get bland quickly, the code behind the simple graphics is elegant and works as expected and explained in the short tutorial. As you play text boxes pop up to inform the player of historical events or to let you know that certain research concepts have been completed. They’re too frequent and the text is typed out letter by letter consuming far too much time. A single left click speeds up the process but if the whole text popped up the effect would be speedier and would feel less like filler to force you to spend more time in the game. Reading the text is pleasurable since the names of popular real world consoles and their parent companies are bastardized, meaning PlayStation is called “Playsytem” and Nintendo becomes “Ninvendo”. It’s a thinly veiled but nice touch of copyright skirting that brings the player through the roughly 35 years of gaming history the title carries you through. While the graphics are nothing to brag about they work well enough to get the job done and there’s just enough happening on the screen to keep you paying attention to the game. Watching the bubbles float to the top of the screen as your project is carried through its development cycle is calming. Generally though, the graphics are just a cover up for the number crunching taking place behind the façade. Once a game is released for public consumption a review screen pops up letting you know if your city simulation or mystery adventure is worth buying. It appears to be nothing more than a random number generation cycling through the four scores you’re given much like a modified slot machine. The game does a terrible job keeping the player fully informed and this process takes much too long to complete. Again, it’s a nifty way of giving some measure of feedback but its presentation is slightly uninspired and doesn't provide any information of real value. The graphics, while pleasing, are very simple but none the less agreeable on the eyes. The whole graphical package works but it’s sparse and quickly grows redundant.

Sound

Game Dev Tycoon is somewhat cheap in the sound department. The background music, while sort of nice to listen to and well orchestrated, plays constantly but it’s a simple ditty that loops over and over and over. It’s nothing memorable and eventually dissipates into the back of your mind so you’re almost completely unaware of it after a few hours at the computer. If you've played any of the budget titles you find lying around the video game store you’ll get a pretty good idea of the quality of the music and the sound effects the game throws at you. Sound effects are another simple affair. The bubbles that are generated during the development process are the cutesy “bloops” you find in most Facebook games. A little ringing sound is played to inform the player that research is finished or whenever a text pop-up splashes onto the screen. Outside of a few stock sound effects the game is devoid of anything in the way of ambient noise. The avatars of your staff must work at silent keyboards and mice as there is no satisfying clicking and clacking of work actually being done. Work terminals apparently are not hooked up to any kind of speaker system so you can’t hear even a looping track of simple game sounds playing as you rush to complete your current project. These are small touches that the development team may not have had the time, technology, or budget to incorporate but without their inclusion the game world becomes sterile and lackluster. The charming sound effects, while extremely limited, work just well enough so they don’t become grating and aggravating. The music is tucked into the background nicely as well so that too doesn't become a headache inducing nightmare. All sounds are implemented in such a way that they never overbear the player but it’s disappointing that they’re not much to listen to and lean so far towards something you’d play on your web browser that the overall effect feels cheap. What comes out of your speakers is pleasing enough though it’s far too slight for a standalone game.

GamePLay

Most of your time in Game Dev Tycoon is spent creating, completing, and releasing your company’s video games to the consumer market. The game starts off with your custom avatar alone in his or her garage churning out game after game at the beginning of our beloved industry. Your only have access to two platforms out the gate, the PC and the game’s version of the Commodore 64. Humble text based adventures give way to simple 2D graphics and eventually the Nintendo Entertainment System equivalent comes into play and the game slowly opens up better technology for you to research. The longer you’re able to keep your finances in order more powerful platforms are released allowing you to really put your new tech to the test. As you grasp each new technology you’re able to create your own custom game engines allowing you to place better video game concepts into the most cutting edge machinery at the time to really give your games the extra push they need to become successful. Game development is a simple procedure throughout the entire game and the formula Game Dev Tycoon uses to complete a project never changes. It’s a simple set of three sliding bars displayed at the three development intervals it takes to start and finish a project. At the most basic level you choose your genre, theme, platform and engine and off you go. Later on more options open up including AAA development and MMO games. Invest more time into stories and quests will yield higher scores for RPGs while a focus on the game engine and artificial intelligence will make for a better simulation games. The game denotes what’s more important for each genre you’re currently working on by a set of plus or minus signs beneath each slider but finding the right balance is more of a guessing game than anything that requires deep strategy. The simple elegance of the interface works but it’s ultimately flat and more of a graphical overlay for some bits of code that dictate what you’re technically supposed to do. Once you’re confident you’ve got the right time allocation for each gaming device you sit back and watch the little bubbles float up to be put away in the meter system that indicates how much technology and design points are being stacked into your game. Usually, the higher these numbers the better the game will eventually be as your team pushes the boundaries of the technology available within the game’s time. Speaking of time, there is no option to slow down or speed up the game which is a shame. As it is time seems to pass far too quickly with new technology and research cropping up at such a clip that it’s hard to keep up. Again, this is probably service to the fast paced nature of the industry but a few ticks slower would make the development process shift towards the more realistic. While dragging your humble start up into a powerhouse video game development and research company is fun and will drag you into the game whether you like it or not, the gameplay becomes rote far too quickly and without enough detail the game slowly devolves into a grind fest that loses its initial luster. The game is not intended to be played in marathon sessions for sure, it’s more for a diversion from your more hardcore gaming. It’s a great place to enter when you’re bored and can’t find anything else to play or simply need something simplistic to give your mind a rest from the more complicated games available. Oddly enough, Game Dev Tycoon rests somewhere between a casual title and a full-fledged computer game; there is something soothing about the simple graphics and sound and the relatively little user input needed to drive the game forward. And there is a certain level of challenge to the game but it’s difficult to figure out why some of your games top the charts and others sink to the bottom of the bargain bin. The game is woefully inferior when giving player feedback and what you think is a sure shot in the barrel for a hit game suddenly returns middling, or worse horrible, reviews stunting its sales and the cash in your pocket. They’re head scratching moments and may be tribute to the volatile nature of the video game industry but these moments feel more unfair than a reflection on the poor choices you may have made. Even when you do everything to what you think is perfection the game slaps an average score of 3 across the board and your 1.5 million dollar project turns into a title that barely leaves the shelves and pushes you ever closer to bankruptcy. With no substantial feedback I’m trying to figure out how the game works exactly. Researching new technologies and then implementing them into the newest platforms is entertaining but you’ll have to stretch your imagination to get any real sense of progress. Graphics levels are simply implemented into your newest game engine and over time your office reflects the changing technology landscape moving from chunky CRTs to sleek flat screen monitors, but there’s no real way of seeing how your research is technically influencing your work other than to give you higher review scores and the ability to push your titles into every video gamer’s home. It’s quirky and on a technical level it works but given the limited scope of the game this reviewer may be asking a bit too much for the debut title of a game finished by just two people. There must be some addictive drug encoded because you’ll still keep coming back to Game Dev Tycoon again and again despite the shallow mechanics at play. The game is an absolute joy to play even if the servings are kept to light fare only. Naming your video games and developing the custom engines that run them is great and gives the player a small chance to personalize their experience. The game is a completely linear experience despite the more sandbox elements we’ve come to expect from simulation titles. The game historically plots the industry and on every playthrough the timing of the release of new consoles, platforms, and technologies is exactly the same. There is a level of comfort that settles in as you know what to expect but eventually you’re able to outmaneuver your competition by being able to peer into the future. Your competition is also something of a misnomer as you’re not actively playing the field against other companies; rather, you’re main goal is to simply sell the most copies of a game as you possibly can to funnel more cash and research points into better technologies to create even better games…wash rinse and repeat. The first five or six games you play are fresh and exciting but beyond that the flaws of the game stack against it and it becomes a rote experience with a few random encounters popping up every so often. Game Dev Tycoon at its very center sits in a gravity well of enjoyment but the farther out you go the weaker the effect it has on the player until eventually it’s nothing more than a distant star but one that shines brightly none the less when all the parts are added up.

Final Thoughts

Game Dev Tycoon is a game that is, at the end of the day, not for every player though what you get in the vanilla version makes it worth a look if you can find it on sale. $10 is just slightly too much to ask for a game of this type. Steam consistently has worthwhile sales so if they take a few bucks off and you’ve been on the fence about this title you should certainly give it a whirl. Developers such a Greenheart Games deserve some support as they’re not exploiting the consumer masses but rather being upfront and relatively transparent with giving you an idea of what you’re getting before you start dropping cash into their bank account. When the duo development team is taken into consideration on what I can only imagine to be a budget of a couple dollars and a ton of dreams, Game Dev Tycoon is surprisingly polished and a bunch of fun to play. The mechanics, a distillation of technical aspects of video gaming brought down to their most simplistic form, work well even if the game isn’t giving the appropriate feedback to the player to help them figure out what the hell is going on most times. If only speaking of the technical aspects of Game Dev Tycoon everything is honed and implemented in such a way that they just work and in some instances this alone is a crowning achievement. The sound in totality in the game is barebones but what does leak out of your speakers adds a whimsical touch. All sounds keep themselves to the background to add a little more flavor to what, at the core, is a really sterile world but they help to bring your video game development dreams to life with a dash of spice. A few dollars for a whole bunch of fun is worth it if you’re looking for instant gratification but don’t expect to be with this game for the long haul. It simply doesn’t have the breadth and depth to be one of those games you’ll chat about with your friends and brag about your accomplishments or lament your failures. Watching your own version of SimCity or Fallout tank or succeed has a certain charm that helps you make up your own stories about your fake video game company but it’s generally a solo experience, talking to yourself more than writing reams of fan fiction for popular intake. There is a community following for Game Dev Tycoon that seems quite chatty on the company’s official forums but I’m not confident enough yet to see if this fan base will be staying with the game for any substantial length of time. Greenheart Games has given their fans with the modification inclination access to the code to create their own content to distribute but I haven’t tinkered with any mods yet and I’d rather review what my readers can actually buy and rely on to work properly. The vanilla game is certainly fun and whatever the modding community can come up with will certainly add extra playing time, but I’m going to leave that up to you to figure out if the modified code is worth the effort to track down and install. Game Dev Tycoon is an excellent title for the casual gamer or those who are into the management simulation scene; hardcore gamers may want to pass this title over, unfortunately, as the quality and the content may be too lackluster to keep their attention for long. This is one game that is just screaming for a sequel to be made. I almost imagine Greenheart Games looking something like what they created in their first video game. If they can take their cash from sales and drop some research and experience points into better graphics, deeper gameplay, more complex simulations, more varied world events and player influences on the game world the second attempt may be what we all wish this game could be. But for now Game Dev Tycoon is a noble foray into the cutthroat video game industry even if it becomes all too easy after a time. If you enjoy games that contain the word tycoon anywhere in the title you should seriously consider buying this game as it pitches just enough at you to keep coming back for more. If simulation games aren’t your thing or your tastes run towards the AAA gaming sphere, you can safely pass this game up in favor of something with deeper and more varied gameplay. However, anyone trying to find a legitimate independent developer to support should consider Greenheart Games a startup studio with the proper measure of bravado and humbleness that is sure to lead to their success. If you’re looking to toss some money to a game and are considering it more of a donation than a purchase Game Dev Tycoon is certainly worth the money, just don’t expect the most fully realized experience. Given time and maybe some expansion packs Game Dev Tycoon itself could evolve into something none of us expected while being able to skirt a proper sequel.